Diablo 3 Podcast #105: Gamescom Diablo 3 Expansion RoS Preview

Posted By: August 19, 2013

Flux is joined by Neinball and first time guest Rankil to discuss the Diablo 3 Expansion: Reaper of Souls debut/preview coming up this week at Gamescom 2013. Will we get big news or just a small preview? What are they going to hold back for Blizzcon in November?

9:00 — What will we see of D3:RoS from Gamescom? Cinematic teaser? Actual game footage? Loot 2.0 details? The sixth class?

14:00 — Analyzing the teaser quote, “Death, at last, shall spread its wings over all.” How this relates to the plot of Diablo 3 and previews the plot of the Expansion. Neinball explains Diablo lore and background info. Lots of talk of Archangels in this portion.

23:15 — Evil angels could be bosses, but what would the trash mobs be? Could angels have demons serving them? Where will Act 5 take place?

33:20 — Will Gamescom be really big news and prompt emergency podcasts, or will it just be some cool image teases and no real content or info to debate? Diablo III coming sooner than expected?

37:00 — Diablo 3 console coming soon. Rankil is eager for the PS3 version and a full play through.

41:20 — Will the expansion add more character slots to go with the new class(es)? Ladders with separate char slots for those? Ironborn mode special char slots to not share the stash? What will the 6th class be? Can it be anything other than a Druid/Half-Demon/Shapeshifter with strength for Mainstat?

THE THEME Oh wow, where do I start. Theme: Life and death. That means balance. Keeper of balance is Trag’Oul, related to the Nephalems. Ureh is a place that might be in one of two expansions, which means Necromancers. Necromancers are back to the theme: Life, death and it’s balance.

ANGEL OF DEATH So yeah.. Malthus, the demon from Book of Tyrael seems a bit more nature, then hell or heaven. If all three parts are involved (above, bottom and in between) this creature could be one of many new threats. And I have a vision for both angels and demons coming crawling for help from the Nephalem to stop death, which is the biggest threat for all three parts.

And Malthael, loosing it and just realise that “to keep the balance, we must kill all”. I do this a lot on my computer, reseting it so I can remake stuff and this is what it’s all about.

CLASSES The class should be mid-range strenght-class, but if we get 2 expansions, it can actually wait. I wish but doubt we are gonna see 2 classes in 1 expansion 🙁 If we get 2 classes we have vitality-theme which fit Necromancer a bit better.

Shapeshifting is probably a no go if you involve demon-fusion or transformation. Reason being is that Demon Hunter shapeshifting with a demon-hand was scraped because Nephalems are bound to be human.. That means no vampires, no cyborgs, no demonhybrids.

Druids is possible and since Demon Hunter already use animal as pets.. I just feel that Druid can’t give us much to the table.. Sure, if it’s about a nature-creature a Druid could be a strenght-class with bear-powers or whatever to be the one which drives the story of balance, but then again, so could Necromancers. It fits but at the same time does not fit. It’s confusing!

OTHER Adria are gonna get crushed. If not by you, then a NPC scene (remember how Cain died?) I really hope she has a small part in the expansion. I do not like that character at all. Imperius gonna loose it to, turn to wrath can be that he dies by the hands of Angel of Death, or by you.. Either way he is gonna perish.

DIRGEST I hope we see dirgest, the thing locked up in the jewel.. The stone, or whatever. I wish Angels and Demons are gonna be afraid of this pre-time creature. I wish Angel of Death get peace by Trag’Oul and I wish the expansion gonna help Diablo 3 become a success. Thank you.

I thought Neinball’s theory about the Demon Hunter half demon thing was reasonable. Bliz clearly liked the idea and showed us a ton of images and talk about it during the DH panel. Seemed like they rejected it more for “this class is an archer” than for any other reason. And the 6th class won’t be an archer, so it’s a definite possibility. I’m not thinking it’ll be just like that old concept art, but inspired by, perhaps?

GAMESCOM Teaser of expansion only, maybe some slim news about paragon 2.0 and loot 2.0. I do not expect anything more then this. Blizzcon is the way to go with bigger news. And Hype is something Blizz love.

DECKARD CAIN Reaper of Souls = Collection of dead people? Cain is dead, so when do we meet him? Are we going to have him back, healthy and young? It would be cool since he already had approx 150 years of adventure, why stop now?

TRIUNE There are stuff related to this, Magdha and Adria being involved in this.

THE VOID & TRAG’OUL AGAIN Prison for the most powerful of creatures, could this be where the jewel are? Trag’Oul had a jewel in the book of cain, or a glowing sphere. Could this be the same thing? The Void could be seen in the picture of Reaper of Souls site. The dust could be stars which might be a sign of Trag’Oul, the keeper of balance.

LILITH AND INARIUS Are we gonna see mother and father of the Nephalems? Inarius should be totally good and Lilith totally evil, being the daughter to Mephisto and all…

First of all, it makes no sense from a marketing standpoint to throw a cinematic with the expansion title and a tiny bit of information into the room, and hope that this will keep people satisfied/interested in teh franchise until BlizzCon. It would also be sub-optimal to not reveal the next class (druid?) at this point, so this is what I expect:

– A cinematic trailer featuring the expansion title, a glimpse/teaser of the main antagonist (Malthael?), plus the new class in some furious action

– A gameplay video featuring the new class and some of the news zones/mobs/features

– A bullet list (press conference) incl. an overview of the main/new features, the number of acts & names of the new zones, the new class, the new artisan (Mystic) etc, with in-depth details/coverage following at the BlizzCon D3X1 panels

– A special gamescom promotion like: Order the digital D3X1 PC Version on our webseite now and get this and this for free, plus a GUARANTEED spot in the D3X1 beta!

I’m convinced that both the beta and release of D3X1 is closer than most people think. Why? Because it would be an enormous effort even for a company like Blizzard to test and release a separate “Loot 2.0” systems patch before D3X1. It would be a serious waste of time and resources. Ideally, they would start both the “Loot 2.0” patch a.k.a. D3X1 pre-patch beta plus the D3X1 beta in October with a D3X1 release target of May 2014 (and the D3X1 pre-patch some time before that).

BlizzCon belongs for the most part to WOWX5 because it pays the bills.

Sorry to be offtopic, but for months now I have tried to get my account activated and no one ever replies 🙁 I wanna join in on the ironborn hc mode but cant until i am registered! Can someone please sort it for me. Thanks!

I personally doubt it, but who knows… Given the popularity of the Barbarian, maybe the third class will also be a Barbarian. And then they rename the game to “Barbarians” and release a proper D3. That would be a nice turn of things.

We debated that one years ago when it was first seen. It was on the first first b-roll art vid from 2008, so it’s very early character art and could have evolved a lot since then. If not for her holding the snake I’d say it’s 100% female barb. Same hair, muscular body, face, and lots of the barb gear is animal-themed, so that looks like an early more-shaman style char concept. Rather than some other class design that they considered and scrapped.

They’ve got a bunch of art like that, but they don’t let us see it, and this image was released when we only had the Barb and WD in the game, so I don’t think they’d have let it out otherwise.

But why would a typical plate armor class like a barb wear a druid pelt, wield a snake, and have that cool bear claw/symbol on his/her belt? All those symbols together tell me this is a druid, a new druid. ^^

@nobbie, I agree with everything you said. If it was just going to be a press release, it would probably only be the teaser video, but given that Blizzard is actually doing a presentation, it makes a lot more sense to have everything you listed. I doubt there will be any details (beyond what you said above), as I am guessing that all the systems are still being tweaked. And anyway, this initial reveal is more for the world at large, as opposed to providing details for the dedicated fans. I’m guessing details will be revealed through interviews or at Blizzcon (the CMs and designers said Blizzcon would be big for D3). I doubt they will provide details on what Loot 2.0 means or if there will be a sharagon system or what the new end game content is. Like you said, this is a marketing opportunity

-Half of the intro cinematic as suggested revealing some -Cliffhanger/Glimpse to the story -Setting -Mystic as 3rd follower incl. artworks and mechanics -Teaser of new character class (no actual reveal)

I’d bet good money that we will know the next D3 class in two days. There will be no new big D3X1 revelations at BlizzCon, just details, because that show will focus almost completely on WOWX5 aka “The Dark Below”.

Sorry to be offtopic, but for months now I have tried to get my account activated and no one ever replies :( I wanna join in on the ironborn hc mode but cant until i am registered! Can someone please sort it for me. Thanks!

You should have received an email at the address you used to register here. Just find that email and click the link to activate the account. If you cannot find it, let me know and I will get it done for you.

Hey Dacar92, I have recieved no e-mail, I imagine the one I was using in my previous post does not like mail sent from this domain etc, I have changed the e-mail in this reply, if you can see it? If not let me know however and hopefully we can get it sorted! Thanks again, and sorry for intruding on the post.

I don’t think they will fully reveal anything in which I’m saying is that they’ll show just enough to only leave us with a good enough direction to speculate on the new class, the new lore, the new bad guy/boss but there will probably be some idea of the loot 2.0 maybe. I’ve said this before many times the new class will most likely be a shaman type class that uses totems, shape shifting and elemental magic. My other two guesses would be a necromancer or Death Knight.

I really think we will get a good decent reveal. I think we will at least know the plot idea, and class information. I just see them using Blizcon for more playable stuff and announcing their next wow expansions.

I’m personally hoping we get the shapeshifting druid class back, as it was my favorite in d2. I kinda think we are going to get something more necromancer like though. As a kinda attempt to please fans, and possibly fit more with a theme. Either way I am excited to see what happens.

Really enjoyed the podcast, thanks guys.
I really think we will get a good decent reveal. I think we will at least know the plot idea, and class information. I just see them using Blizcon for more playable stuff and announcing their next wow expansions.
I'm personally hoping we get the shapeshifting druid class back, as it was my favorite in d2. I kinda think we are going to get something more necromancer like though. As a kinda attempt to please fans, and possibly fit more with a theme. Either way I am excited to see what happens.

That’s the thing. If they REALLY wanted to please the fans they would add 2 classes; the druid/shaman class and the necromancer/death knight to please the D2 fans. Honestly I don’t know how long they plan on working on this expansion but if they don’t plan on releasing it until late 2014 I don’t see how they couldn’t get 2 classes together by then

Having just gone through act 4 hell the words of that quatrain stuck with me. I especially recall the conversation with the Angel of Fate. I am sure someone can look up the exact text but he was doom and gloom as Fate dictated the Angels losing. Then your characters says you can stop it and he says that nephalems are not subject to Fate and that perhaps the nephalem is the only one who can save Heaven and defeat Diablo.

So, to me this indicates that Fate being shattered means that with the success of the nephalem and/or man, free will takes over and Fate is no longer needed. It also gives me clues, along with Tyrael becoming a mortal and admiring the strength of man due to his facing death every day, that there are 2 options: the bad guy route where in order to achieve balance everyone dies; or the good guy route where in order to become strong enough to overcome the endless conflict, everything must eventualy die and everything must risk dying every day. (i.e. angels and demons must become mortal)

Sorry to be offtopic, but for months now I have tried to get my account activated and no one ever replies :( I wanna join in on the ironborn hc mode but cant until i am registered! Can someone please sort it for me. Thanks!

I replied to your email from 16th yesterday and issued another activation code but you are on Hotmail and they have problems receiving emails from IncGamers. That’s pointed out in the registration screen so people know they may not get an email.